Students generally hate doing homework. They try to
always give an excuse why they haven´t done it or why they do not do it. Very
few of them are courageous enough to state that they have not done it and
suffer the consequences. AS you have noticed there are all kinds of students in
a classroom. There are those that are kind and help the ones who have
difficulties; those who think they are better than the others and impose their
power on them so that they can do the homework for them; there are those who
really like to study and do beyond what was assigned. Nonetheless, there are
those that I call a wolf in sheep´s skin.
A wolf- in- sheep´s- clothing student is that one that
doesn´t fit in any of the descriptions above. When you look at them they have
that angelical look on their faces and tend to show you that they are slow
learners and need your help. Instead of admitting that they simply did not do
the work because they didn´t feel like it.
This is the story of a freshman high school student
who thought she could get away with not doing her work by simply smiling and
being sweet kind to the teacher when she was spoken too. She never did her
homework and when asked to work in groups she would always start crying so that
she could be put in her best friend´s group claiming that her friend was very
patient and she explained whatever the young girl did not understand.
Perhaps this kind of attitude can work in grade
school, but in high school it is a different story all together. Funny how
students tend to think that teachers are dumb, deaf and blind. Not all of them,
of course, but in this case this girl, whom we will call Berta in this story,
seemed to believe this to be true.
It was the end of the day and the English class had
started with a cheerful hello from the teacher. Most of the students had
returned the greeting but not Berta, she was busily talking to her best friend,
not that they hadn´t been talking all day long. However, at this moment she
needed to finish telling her friend what happened on the weekend.
The teacher informed the class what they’d be working
on within those 45 minutes, and having said this, the class began.
The first thing on the plan was homework correction.
Many students just said that they didn´t do it. Some just frowned. Others kept
on talking to their friends, Berta´s case. The teacher had to call on her to
open up her book to the homework. Berta smiled, apologized and asked whether
she could go to her locker to get her book for she had gotten he wrong book.
The teacher was tired after a long day and before giving her permission, she
said that she should have done that instead of speaking to her friend all this
time, a few minutes had gone by. Berta smiled and left the room to get her book.
The teacher didn´t wait for her to come back, so the
correction started. Berta came in sat down and when she opened her book she
realized she had not done the assignment. When the teacher called on her to
answer she said she hadn´t done that particular question. So, the teacher
called on other students and no answers, therefore the teacher said that doing
homework was very important and that she was very disappointed at the fact that
very few students had done theirs. She also added that the students were
forcing her to inform their parents. Having said this, the students contested
and asked for a second chance, Not Berta. She simply said that the teacher had
not assigned that particular page. This trick would have worked if the teacher
hadn´t written it down in her planner and the students who wanted to learn
hadn´t confirmed that the teacher had assigned it.
Berta was outraged at the classmates. Since that
didn´t work, when the teacher looked at her she started to make a sad face and
her eyes were starting to well up. The teacher immediately let out a “Don´t
cry!”. All the other students laughed.
Berta looked at them and smiled, saying that she wasn´t crying. But deep down
inside she was pissed. She was a high school student now. She was quite popular
too and belonged to a cool group of girls. She planned to get by just like she
did in grade school using her little tricks.
The teacher went on correcting the exercises. A
student who hadn´t done the homework volunteered to do it right on the spot and
did a good job at it too. Meanwhile Berta was doing the pages to follow,
missing out on the corrections.
It was getting quite boring so the teacher decided to
change the activity and work on another skill: listening comprehension with a
song. The students really got a kick out of that and they´d be practicing the
grammar but in a more interactive way.
Berta was appalled; she had gone to all the trouble of
doing the pages ahead and the teacher wasn´t going to check it. Oh no she
wasn´t going to leave it at that. She wanted to make sure that the teacher saw
that she had done the homework, better, fool the teacher into believing that
she had done the homework. So she called the teacher over to her desk and asked
a question.
“Teacher, I did not understand the answer to this
question.”
“Berta, we haven´t check that page yet. We will after
the song.”
“But can´t you give me the answer.”
“Certainly, but if you look on the previous page, it
is the same as number 3.” the teacher smiled and sarcastically responded.
Berta froze as the teacher took her book and turned
the page to show her where the answer was. She tried to rip the book from the
teacher´s hands, but to no avail.
“Well Berta, if you had paid attention to the
corrections instead of doing something else, you would have the answer.”
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(Written: August 6, 2014)Todos os direitos reservados a Meire Marion.
